Nature's Blue Jay

The Blue Jays ruined this weekend for me.

Last week the Jays went to Atlanta and had one of those "Screw you!"/"No, screw YOU!" kind of series where each game is more violent than the last. The lasting result is that Braves first baseman/all time legendary Nats-slayer Freddie Freeman is out for a while because some Canuck plunked him on the wrist.

It's a damn shame that this happened . . . against some AL team. If anyone was going to break Freddie Freeman's arm, it should have been us.

Remember when John Lannan broke Chase Utley's wrist? I'm not saying I wanted Utley's wrist broken — remember, this was long before he tried so hard to murder some Met on the basepaths that they had to make a rule about it — but the fact that it was a division rival generated more heat than if it had been a Diamondback or whatever.

You have to build these programs if you want butts in seats.

It's too bad this all happened against Toronto. Atlanta doesn't care about Toronto, Toronto doesn't care about Atlanta, and the teams aren't going to see each other frequently enough for this ever to turn into a real blood feud. This is exactly why I hate interleague play.

So the Jays ruined this series. They really are like Canada geese. Consider:

1. Canada. Sure, not all the Blue Jays are from Canada, but not all Canada geese are from Canada either.
2. They're dicks and everyone hates them.
3. It's possible that Rougned Odor once punched a Canada goose in the head so hard that its helmet and glasses went flying off.

The Canada goose is nature's blue jay.

I miss Freddie Freeman. He was a good nemesis. I mean, what's Achilles without Hector?

And if you're going to lose a series to the Braves (who aren't trying), you want someone like Freddie Freeman there to take the sting off. No shame in letting Freeman beat you.

I like Kurt Suzuki, but he isn't anybody's Hector.

Are You Not Entertained?

Man, how about that Rangers/Blue Jays fight, huh? My favorite part was when Rougned Odor punched Jose Batista right in his damn face.

Moments before this picture was taken, those glasses and that helmet were actually on that guy's head.

Is that bad? Should I not have enjoyed that? Here's a Craig Calcaterra piece that suggests that I shouldn't have without managing to say much of anything.

These takes [takes expressing the idea that the fight was rad] have one thing in common: for them to make coherent sense, players have to play roles to satisfy an audience rather than be actual human beings with feelings.

Here I run into a problem with empathy. Unless it's sympathy - I've never been able to keep those straight. I'm aware that baseball players are human beings who hurt when Rougned Odor punches them in the jaw, but can I actually care?

There are over 7 billion people in the world. How upset can you get about how many of them getting punched before that's the only thing you have time for?

Speaking only of baseball, I can barely bring myself to care about the 26 guys I'm supposed to (that's the Nats active roster plus Dusty Baker and Matt LeCroy minus Jayson Werth). Maybe it's just that my brain isn't big enough to maintain that kind of Monkeysphere, but Jose Batista's feelings aren't important enough to me that I'm not going to enjoy a fight in which he gets turned into a bobblehead doll by a tiny violent lunatic infielder.

Infested with Lice

So the Nats are lousy now. I was there on Tuesday night, when Tyler Moore hit cleanup. I'm glad I didn't pay for those tickets, because paying money for a professional baseball game and finding out Tyler Moore is hitting cleanup is like . . . well, it sucks.

I did pay like fourteen bucks for a sandwich, but it was really good. Plus I got a "commemorative coin," which is going to sit at the bottom of my junk drawer until the next time I need a little tiny screwdriver to adjust my glasses, at which point it will commemorate the time I got to watch Tyler Moore hit cleanup.

I noticed that when Casey Janssen came in to serve up some meatballs, the Blue Jays fans gave him a standing ovation. It's nice that someone loves him, because as far as I'm concerned he can just get the hell right out of here and never throw another pitch while wearing a hat with a W on it.

Stephen Strasburg has a strained "trapezius," which is just damn good writing. Seriously, a couple posts ago I was trying to think of a joke about the Nats inventing a body part to pretend that Strasburg injured just so they could make it so he doesn't pitch anymore. I couldn't come up with anything, so I gave up.

But the Nats invented the "trapezius." Isn't that great? I guess whoever came up with it was at the circus or something. That's hilarious. "Ow, my trapezius!"

The important thing is that he's out of the way, and now Taylor Jordan can take his place and . . . oh hell. I briefly forgot that the Nats are lousy now.